Can you actually name a personality a “hero” in the event that they as soon as yelled “Give me your face!” at their enemy proper earlier than going all Ed Gein on them? Asking for Optimus Prime.
The chief of the Autobots undoubtedly began out as a good-guy robotic in Michael Bay’s 2007 live-action film Transformers. A standard grievance thrown on the Optimus Prime of that movie is that, in his quest for the omnipotent All Spark, he took the Autobot-Decepticon struggle to the streets of Mission Metropolis, risking numerous human lives. However that call was truly made by Josh Duhamel’s Captain Lennox, and as quickly as Optimus arrived on the scene, he tried to get the All Spark and lead the combat away from people. He even provided to sacrifice his life and merge with the All Spark to destroy it — that’s hero conduct proper there.
In area, nobody can hear you scream — however that does not cease an evil-doer from attempting. This week, Polygon celebrates all types of sci-fi villainy as a result of somebody has to (or else).
And but… even again then, there have been some regarding issues about Optimus Prime’s conduct.
For one, he allowed Bumblebee to be captured by Sector 7, sacrificing him to a shadowy, torture-happy authorities group as a result of he didn’t need to danger shedding the All Spark. And when OP will get knowledgeable in regards to the dying of his comrade Jazz, who was ripped in half by Megatron, his response was little greater than “Oh no! Anyway…” You possibly can try to excuse this by saying that Optimus was combating a struggle, which may desensitize folks and robots alike. The issue, although, is that Optimus, an everlasting veteran of the bloody oily struggle for Cybertron, is all the time in Conflict Mode. And that makes a number of the issues he did within the live-action films basically struggle crimes.
Within the 2009 sequel Revenge of the Fallen, the Autobots workforce up with people to seek out all remaining Decepticons on Earth, like Demolisher, who Prime executes with a point-blank headshot after he’d already been disabled and posed no risk. That needed to contravene some sort of Robotic Geneva Conference about POW.
All through the movie, all Optimus appears to care about is killing Decepticons, maybe to exit in a blaze of glory after the All Spark was misplaced, taking with it any probability of saving Cybertron. And midway by means of the movie, he will get his want, dying by the hands of Megatron.
Later in Revenge of the Fallen, Optimus is introduced again to life with the Matrix of Management. Resurrections are sometimes a tough enterprise. Generally, when issues come again… they arrive again flawed. Add to that the truth that Optimus Prime was then augmented with elements from the Decepticon Jetfire (who supposedly modified sides, however nonetheless) and immediately the scene of Optimus going all deli slicer on the face of the Fallen, the unique Decepticon, makes much more sense.
Optimus would proceed down this darkish path within the 2011 follow-up Darkish of the Moon, the place he’s betrayed by his mentor Sentinel Prime, inflicting one thing inside him to only snap. In the exact same film, he permits Decepticons to stage an assault on Chicago that ends in 1,300 deaths, all to show that Decepticons are a risk to Earth. Sentinel truly accused Optimus of not prioritizing the wants of the numerous over the wants of the few (cute, since he was voiced by The Wrath of Khan’s Leonard Nimoy). However it’s Optimus who was the true Quantity Cruncher of Doom within the film, deciding that over a thousand harmless deaths was an appropriate sacrifice to save lots of the remainder of humanity. Though, you do need to marvel how a lot him attending to slaughter his enemies once more factored into his resolution…
The truth is, when main a counterattack on Chicago, Optimus doesn’t give an inspiring speech like “Let’s save Earth” or “Let’s honor the sacrifice of these misplaced right here,” however slightly says: “We are going to kill all of them.” Although that’s not completely correct, as a result of Optimus doesn’t “kill” Megatron within the film. He performs a Mortal Kombat fatality on him by ripping off his head and backbone.
It’s like with each film, an increasing number of of the little goodness left in Optimus Prime was chipped away till he was operating on empty. One of many largest blows to his soul was the 2014 film Age of Extinction, the place people kill a number of Autobots and Optimus witnesses Stanley Tucci’s character melting the corpses of his associates for steel to make Transformers of their very own. In that second, it dawns on Optimus that, to people, Transformers won’t ever be absolutely sentient creatures. They are going to all the time be machines that may be stripped down for elements, or, from their standpoint, have their corpses desecrated for revenue. His psyche by no means stood an opportunity after that.
On the finish of the movie, Optimus leaves Earth to search for the Transformers’ creators. He finally ends up discovering one, Quintessa, within the fifth installment of the collection, The Final Knight. The issue is that she seems to be sort of a dick. A thoughts — human or robotic — can take quite a bit: struggle, seeing your mates’ corpses mutilated, betrayal. However discovering out that, effectively, god exists and is a jerk can be an excessive amount of for lots of people to deal with. Within the film, Quintessa supposedly “brainwashed” Optimus into changing into the evil Nemesis Prime, however what actually occurred was extra like what the Joker did to Harvey Dent in The Darkish Knight. All OP bought was slightly push over the sting when he was already dangling over it on his robo-heels.
In the long run, Bumblebee helps Prime return to regular, proving that OP’s case of purple-eye wasn’t actually brainwashing however slightly a psychotic episode introduced on by an excessive amount of psychological trauma, which might 100% occur once more. If something, The Final Knight leaves Optimus in an much more fragile frame of mind after discovering out that Earth, “the one place within the universe whose folks let me name it residence,” is definitely Unicron, which in Cybertronian faith appears to be their model of THE DEVIL.
Until Optimus will get some skilled assist, chances are high that he’ll proceed to periodically succumb to his demons till he finally ends up on trial in Area Hague. I suppose because of this Paramount went forward and made Bumblebee as an alternative of coping with that.
